Random Acts of Cinema

Director Agnès Varda leads the viewer through over a decade in the lives of two friends, Apple and Suzanne, as they seek fulfillment and freedom, struggling against the demands of conservative French…

You know those drab, mid-century French films where pale, thin guys in suits stare at each other with blank, unreadable expressions on there faces while a voiceover drones on describing this inaction…

Now wait just a minute here.  Let me try to get this straight.  You mean to tell me that Jimmy Stewart is a new deputy sheriff in town that doesn’t carry a gun, he avoids confrontation with a corrupt…

To steal (and completely spoil) Mike’s joke from the very end of this episode: we hope that you’re ready to listen to three men discuss 3 Women.  Because we’re joined this week by Patrick O’Riley fro…

John Singleton transforms the nostalgia-laden, American coming-of-age tale, establishing the iconic South Central setting at a crucial moment in American history.  Already a political film, the direc…

Like the Documentary Now! spoof, we’re really more interested in our protagonist Nanook (Allakariallak) than the admittedly-groundbreaking documentarian Robert J. Flaherty.  And sure, it’s obviously …

Special guest Max Rieger joins us this week as we dive into the volatile and fascinating world of 1938 Mexico in order to follow the last day in the life of… an alcoholic English misanthrope played b…

Look, of course we want to just talk about Kevin Kostner’s 1991 masterpiece (the one they got right).  But it’s just not in the collection.  So I guess we’ll just watch this “Prince of Thieves” adapt…

Want to listen to a couple of dummies realize that there are such things as era-jumping supernatural romance films that are set in Hong Kong?  And that everyone else already knew this? No?  Well, at …

Arousing action/drama by legendary director Robert Aldrich? Starring Jimmy Stewart?! Yes, please! Add to this some tense survival stakes, and a real man’s-man ensemble cast, and a dusty Sahara-meets-…

Just in time for the spookiest day of the year, we take a look at Nicolas Roeg’s classic meditation on death and loss set in perhaps the most melancholic and atmospheric place in the world.  Ah, Veni…

It’s Fellini-time!  Somehow it took our random number generator 4 seasons to finally pick a film in the Criterion Collection by this legendary Italian director.  But is all of the glamour and allure …

A “forgotten man” named Godfrey (played by the charming William Powell) finds a path to redemption when he’s hired on as the butler to the rich, bored, and otherwise useless Bullock family… for some …

Perhaps the most Finnish way to make a love letter to Finland is to make a movie that emphasizes a kind of remote inhabitability of a place and its people.  No really: this movie about a deadpan popu…

Time to mark off another square on your Terry Gilliam bingo card, because this week we are journey through time and space into the exquisitely crafted universe of a mad god.  Which, coincidentally, i…

Content Warning: If you know, you know.  Because this is Funny Games.  A movie celebrated and criticized for its brutal and emotionally devastating depiction of violence, mental and physical torture,…

It turns out that while Mike knows EXACTLY what happed to the girls who disappeared on a school trip in Victoria on Valentine’s Day 1900, Charlie really doesn’t.  Director Peter Weir’s period-set mys…

It’s weird to think of a film in the Criterion collection that took twelve years to make that doesn’t involve production delays.  I mean, who does Richard Linklater think he is?  Some sort of anti-Gi…